I admit it, I feel misled by the cover blurb on A. S. Byatt’s Little Black Book of Stories. It starts off “Like Hans Christian Anderson and the Brothers Grimm, A. s. Byatt knows that fairy tales are for grown-ups. And in this ravishing collection she breathes new life into the form.” So I was anticipating a book of fairy tales, but what it gave me was just what it said in the title: A book of stories. Although there were lavish descriptions and rich details that maybe the writers of the cover blurb interpreted as being magical, very few of the stories contained magic in any way, and I ended up very disappointed.